If I wanted to stay hidden half-protected in a man’s shadow then I would still talk to my father. Instead I crossed the state line.

Besides, this city collects young girls and their mangled childhoods like lint and if I really want to leave behind everything that happened to me once upon a swingset,

that means for everything else I’m sticking.

The Dutch named this borough for people like me, who needed a place honest and unassuming and a little bit like the home they ran away from: Broken Land.

Amanda Halkiotis

is a creative writer and theater critic who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. Her poetry is a reminder that no single person is native to this place. We are all visitors in Brooklyn. This is a land of nomads and eager travelers.Read more of her elegantry here.